


Love is a Battle

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Odin was once okay, Playing With Mythology, Romance, need to inspire self to write again, odin and frigga actually do really love eachother, playing with headcanon, pre children, pre marriage, request, short oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prince that had never failed a battle in his life, due to a mix of brute force and tactics, it was amazing how much he failed frequently to win the heart of Frigga, the representative of Asgard's tentative new 'allies', the Vanir. With a truce between the long squabbling races conditional upon their marriage, this is the tale of how Odin managed to win his Queen's heart.</p><p>A short one shot to get myself back into writing, a friend requested 'how Odin and Frigga met' and I kinda just expanded it and went crazy with my own headcanon's and crammed a few mythological facts in there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is a Battle

Love was just another battle.

To the eyes of a rash young prince, he saw the challenge his father posed him as something akin to devising a strategy for war.

Discover her weaknesses, exploit them, and enjoy the spoils that fell from his success in conquering her heart.

This was how the crown prince Odin had attempted to first woo Frigga, and it had ended in a way he had never expected and would never be an indication of their future to come.

A sharp slap both to his cheek and his pride and this was how Odin retreated from his very first meeting with his future bride.

Just some years before, they would have been enemies. She was the daughter of two elder Vanir, a magical race that had long squabbled and bickered with Asgard over how they kept their secrets close and their spells to themselves, and how the warrior race ever pushed and battled that they share such knowledge.

Frigga’s very arrival to the court was a symbolic offering of peace, she their ambassador and also the battering chip the sorcerer race had used to convince King Borr that a peace could be achieved, but it was a heavily conditional one.

The challenged posed had been to create a happy match between his eldest son, his heir, Odin and the beautiful, proud Lady Frigga.

No forced hand on her part, no tricks to cement her to a man she had no love for, it was left on the shoulders of Prince Odin to win her heart or else prove that the Aesir and the Vanir had no hope in allying themselves closely for all that would come of it would be loathing.

And how he had proved those infernal Vanir right in his first attempts. Frigga gave him no praise for his besting of his fellow warriors, she held no favour no matter what present he bestowed on her. He even remembered her distinctly yawning as he showered her in compliments, turning to the maidens of the court she had befriended and ignoring his existence entirely.

At first these rebuffs would send him into a rage, he would shout himself hoarse to his friends about how the woman was foolish to think herself in a place so high and mighty. She was just as much a pawn as he, a piece in the game of two stubborn kings. Just because they could not reduce themselves to extend a hand for fear it may be a sign of weakness, they shouldered the blame upon their children if the alliance's terms were to fail.

Meanwhile the Lady Frigga pondered on much the same worry, that whether her pride would cost her people peace, but had she ever asked for this? A brutish, boring husband who saw her as little more than a prize to be won and a treaty to be made?

Behind her beauty, there was wit and magic flowing free. She was capable in her own right, knowing how to make artful use of daggers and spells rather than the brute force she noticed the Aesir favouring. Everyone just expected her to give it all up, her talents and gifts and dreams and ambitions, to be surrounded by these dense warriors her entire life?

Two seasons soared overhead in the time it took for Odin to swallow his pride and learn that there was more to Frigga’s refusal than he had assumed.

He had found her in the garden, and rather than storm on past angrily, the sadness in her eyes made him stall a moment longer. She had not noticed him, but between her fingers used her magic to make the flowers that fall had made wilt grown fresh and new with life once more before making them wilt again, not ceasing until the last petal fell from each small flower.

She felt as if she were one of them, her spirit dying in this place so far from her home, her heart growing weary at the oncoming war which would result simply because she refused to sacrifice her own dwindling happiness for the fate of the two powerful races.

Either way, she would die. Killed in the first moment of war since she was in the heart of Asgard itself, or if she gave in and married everything she stood for would melt away and leave her a hollow husk, Frigga of the Vanir no more.

Odin felt a stirring at spying her solitary sadness, his anger at his father and the Vanir peaking, but fury and arguments would do him little good as he had discovered in the months past. What else could he do though? The headstrong prince had little other skills than to fight and shout, it was all he had ever needed to solve his problems in the past.

It was then the prince had an idea, a stupid idea for a women who cared naught for him, but it was the only hope he had.

It was not a thought for his people or the treaty he had, as he set out upon the journey to seek out Mimir. Nor did Odin think that his plan to drink from the Well of Wisdom would be the key to ensuring Frigga would succumb to the offer of marrying him.

When he reached the well and heard the bargain of its keeper, it was the thought that perhaps maybe he would learn enough of a matter Frigga loved, perhaps even magic, that he may return the smile to her face that had long since been lost during her stay in Asgard. Many would say in the future that Odin sacrificed his right eye for anticipation of when he did eventually take the throne from his father, and would use that infinite knowledge to extend his power and thus his rule as long as possible.

What rumours would come would only ever be half true. In the years to come Odin would use the knowledge from the Well of Wisdom for many deeds while on the throne, but the moment he had made the sacrifice of his eye his true intent had been for Frigga, and only for Frigga.

When he returned, the people were in slight horror of his new found intelligence and magic, previously the excuse for the Aesir and Vanir being at odds for so long was because both races had believed might and mind had too much trouble existing in the same place without complete chaos resulting.

Odin did not care. They did not treat him as such for long, he would soon be their king, after all. In the weeks that followed he approached Frigga again and again, each time the Lady growing less agitated in his presence. She helped him to shape his new powers, explained to him the flow of magic in more natural terms than what the Well of Wisdom could ever provide.

After many seasons more, a love did blossom between them. One stronger than any had ever seen in a previous royal match. With Odin slightly humbled and his mind opened wide by the sacrifice to the well, and Frigga beginning to trust and throw aside her assumptions that the Aesir would never be her people, they married early in the Summer.

The love between Odin Allfather and Queen Frigga would be retold for thousands of years to come, the tale even reaching that of mortal ears so far away from the kingdom of Asgard they ruled, hand in hand. His loving Queen became his counsel, he gave her much more power than any wife to the King had ever known before, trusted her in a way his father had never trusted his mother to tend to the people and take care of his duties while he was away in war or fallen into the Odinsleep.

No matter the misdeeds of Odin to come, no one in the entirety of the Nine Realms could ever deny how much he loved his queen and how, in their youth, he had truly earned her heart.

Love was not a battle, he had discovered all those years ago, it was a compromise.

An alliance between your hearts that could not be forced, only earned, and only for those who were willing to sacrifice for more than just their own happiness.


End file.
